The Golden Tomato Awards were announced at Rotten Tomatoes today, and the third best reviewed wide release in the U.S. is none other than Fantastic Mr. Fox. The film is just barely behind the hits Star Trek and Up. Hopefully this will encourage people to see the film. Read the full list of winner at Rotten Tomatoes.

In The New York Times today Los Angeles correspondent Brook Barnes takes a look at how Fantastic Mr. Fox is faring in the end-of-the-year awards cycle, and in her estimation it might just have a shot at the top prize.

Full article after the jump.

LOS ANGELES — Figuring out which film will win the Academy Award for best animated feature is usually the easiest part of filling out a ballot for your Oscar pool. Go down the list of nominees — often only three, because so few make the cut — and find the one produced by Pixar. Circle it.

But this year, unexpectedly, animation is becoming a hotly contested race.

The biggest reason is “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Wes Anderson’s quirky adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel. The film, from 20th Century Fox and the producer Scott Rudin, is soaking up a surprising amount of awards attention.

In addition to the Golden Globe nomination, yesterday Fantastic Mr. Fox picked up two screenwriting awards from west coast critics associations. Wes and Noah won the Best Adapted Screenplay for the film and it was also named the runner-up for Best Animated Film from the San Diego Film Critics Society. Similarly, The San Francisco Film Critics Circle awarded Fantastic Mr. Fox their prize for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Another from AwardsDaily, this one naming possibly every person involved in the making of the film. I can’t say I’ve ever seen For Your Consideration ads that so fully celebrate the collaboration of everyone involved. Kinda cool. Click on the thumbnail below to view the ad full size.

This one appeared in the December 13th edition of Variety, and given this morning’s news, expect quite a few more before February.

It’s another good day for Wes and co., as Fantastic Mr. Fox continues to pick up critics awards. Announced this morning, Fantastic Mr. Fox won Best Animated Film, and was the first runner-up in both the Best Director and Best Film of the Year categories, with Wes as Director coming in second to Spike Jonze for Where the Wild Things Are, and Fantastic Mr. Fox coming in right behind Up in the Air for Best Film. Nice picks, Indiana. Full results here.

Also announced, Fantastic Mr. Fox won the Best Animated Film award from the New York Film Critics Circle. Full results here.

For those keeping up, the Golden Globes nominations will be announced tomorrow, and given that those are chosen by critics and press, it looks like the film might just have a shot.

Several critics groups announced their annual awards yesterday, and Fantastic Mr. Fox was named the Best Animation by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The rest of the groups seem to have chosen Pixar’s Up, which is not surprising. But a good note that Mr. Fox is definitely in second place, because given the expansion of the Oscars Best Picture category this year, Up may be included in that, which would give Wes’ film a far better shot at wining the Animated film Oscar. Anyway, at this rate, the film seems like a shoo-in for a nomination. We’ll have more awards coverage as groups announce their awards in the following weeks.

A slight variant on the design of the last one, but this one is our favorite, with a numerical breakdown of all the time spent and people inolved in making the movie. It seems like a real tribute to the crew who worked for so long to make the movie. Click on the image below for a larger version and be sure to read the entire quote from Wes.

Again, this came from AwardsDaily and appeared in the December 5th issue of Variety.